A Regency Gilt-Bronze and Glazed Hexagonal Lantern, Circa 1820

Private Collection, Oxford;

Rolleston, London.

Lanterns of this form remained consistently popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, a period when the Gothic style was one of the primary decorative modes in England. There are some Gothic lanterns in the third edition of Thomas Chippendale's Director (1762),¹ but the closest match for the present lot is a design for a 'Lanthon' in Mayhew and Ince's Universal System.² This design similarly features doors that take the form of Gothic windows with extended pointed arches, additional foliate details on the brass frame throughout and a Gothic collar.

¹ Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker's Director: A Reprint of the Third Edition, New York, 1966, pl.CLII.

² William Ince and John Mayhew, Authentic Georgian Furniture Designs: Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762, Mineola, 1998, p.16, pl. V.